François Noudelmann's Thinking with our Ears

What if we removed the earplugs and finally heard the sound of ideas? We've forgotten that thought, whether it's a loud din or a quiet rustle, generates noise.
Philosophers' accents and voices are part of their thinking. We may hear cries and groans even in their texts. Following in the footsteps of Nietzsche's stethoscopic listening, François Noudelmann asks us to delve deeply into philosophical writings, making texts resonate, disclosing their rumbling content. Breaths, flow, accents & silence... these sonorous aspects of discourse are more than just ornaments; they cannot be reduced to rhetorical strategy. The sound features of philosophical thought, far from being minor or anecdotal, invite us to think with our ears, not only our eyes, and to read differently. From Lucretius' rhythm to Derrida's accent, via Sartre, Wittgenstein, Bachelard, and Adorno, François Noudelmann urges us to study an "auditory turn" in philosophy, and to identify the distinctive soundscape of thought.

François Noudelmann is Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture at New York University and Director of La Maison Française.
Former member of the Institut Universitaire de France, he has produced numerous pieces on literature and philosophy that have been translated into a dozen languages, including Pour en finir avec la généalogie (Léo Scheer, 2004), Le Toucher des philosophes. Sartre, Nietzsche et Barthes au piano (Gallimard, 2008), Les Airs de famille, une philosophie des affinités (Gallimard 2012), Le Génie du mensonge (Max Milo, 2015), Soundings and Soundscapes, with S. Kay (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), Archipels Glissant, with F. Simasotchi-Bronès and Y. Toma (PUV, 2020). From 2002 to 2013, he was a producer at France Culture, where he also hosted the weekly and daily shows Les Vendredis de la philosophie, Macadam philo, Je l'entends comme je l'aime, and Le Journal de la philosophie, which explored the many connections between music and the arts, philosophy, literature, poetry, science, and other disciplines. Among many others, he received Hélène Cixous, Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zizek.
He is the editor of two essay series, one published by Presses universitaires de Vincennes and the other by Max Milo.

"Outlining a method for accessing the meaning contained in the musicality of texts, François Nudelmann invites us to train our third ear, which listens to in yhe sense of understanding"
— Nicolas Celnik, Libération.